On this edition of the Sunday Show on BizNews, Neil de Beer, the President of the United Independent Movement, says Deputy President Paul Mashatile – who has reaffirmed government’s commitment to expropriation of land without compensation – should be hauled before court on “terrible” charges of corruption; examines the possible reasons behind the dropping of a corruption charge against former Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture Zizi Kodwa and lists several other cases that have been withdrawn – despite “tantamount evidence”. He gives his verdict on the war of words between ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba and political economist Phumlani M. Majozi over social media posts by the latter – and explains why he believes they are both in the wrong. He also vows to get the inside story on an apparently leaked Helen Zille video about “the ANC’s manipulation (in GNU negotiations), apparently to keep international relationships and international ministries going because that’s where they get most of their stuff”. Furthermore, De Beer comments on the election outcomes in Botswana – where the ruling party was peacefully ousted after 58 years in power – and in Mozambique where unrest has broken out over Frelimo’s alleged rigging of the election – amid rumours that Swapo could lose the next election in Namibia.
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Extended transcript of the interview ___STEADY_PAYWALL___
Chris Steyn (00:02.305)
It is Sunday, the 3rd of November, and it is the Sunday Show with Neil de Beer, the President of the United Independent Movement. Welcome, Neil.
Neil De Beer (00:15.8)
Good day Chris and to all our great listeners. What a week, very interesting week and a lot I think that we can chew on and always great to be here on the set Sunday Show with Chris and Neil.
Chris Steyn (00:28.537)
May we start with Deputy President Paul Mashatile, who has reaffirmed government’s commitment to expropriation of land without compensation.
Neil De Beer (00:41.57)
Yeah, Chris, I think clearly a very huge hit back from Paul Mashatile, but not surprising. I am part of the South African citizenry that says that whatever Paul Mashatile says, I always put in front of it dockets. We cannot forget, and we will not forget on this Sunday Show, that we are true to the belief that the vice president of this country should be impeached and should be set in front of court. Now it is not going to go away and if we have to every month, elke liewe Sondag, put the Paul Mashatile little sticker on the top saying to be charged. So I am sorry as a person that whatever Paul Mashatile tells me, I will always say but to be charged. Because what happens in this country, Paul, which Paul thinks that we are going to forget about matters if he continuously focuses now on land without compensation, which is a massive strike of him trying to now become relevant because other people who we will talk about this week are now making themselves more relevant than him who is supposed to be the candidate to be the next president.
So either charge this man according to what the DA delivered pre-GNU which are horrific charges of corruption, horrific charges of actually being part of miscellaneous matters that are lying underneath the earth on terrible charges of corruption. But now this man comes and he says, but no, no, no, forget about that, that will come. Let’s take land without compensation and I will lead that.
So I think there needs to be a bit of thinking. He needs to be charged because those dockets are not going to go away. And I think until then, Chris, the real people of this country are not going to take him serious. So we are sitting in a quagmire where we’ve got people in the GNU who laid those matters in public and who are currently serving under him and saying nothing. So I think it was a little bit of a I want to be relevant for a while. And he chose a matter that is very sensitive, not just to the people of this country, but also to the economy.
Neil De Beer (03:05.708)
Because if you get up and you say we are going to take your land and that we are not going to have people that have title deed respected in this country, then what real serious foreign direct investor will come into this country and say I will buy a piece of land, I will build a factory and I will employ people. I think this is an absolute scourge and he’s got it wrong and we should be watching this with a very very big microscope.
Chris Steyn (03:33.599)
Talking about accountability for corruption or allegations of corruption, the former Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture, Mr. Zizi Kodwa appears to be off the hook on corruption charges. What do you think is happening at the National Prosecuting Authority?
Neil De Beer (03:56.62)
Nothing. Not enough. Chris, may I read a list? And this list is a list that indicts, in my opinion, the balance between prosecution of citizen and the prosecution of people that are politically enclosed. I’m going to read a list here. Duduzane Zuma, case withdrawn. The Gupta, the Dairy Vrede investigation, withdrawn. Matshela Koko, case withdrawn and thrown out. Zizi Kodwa, case dismissed and withdrawn. Brian Molefe, charges withdrawn. Malusi Gigaba, charges withdrawn. And Sandile Gumede, charges withdrawn. And lately, Phala Phala, Cyril Ramaphosa, charges withdrawn. Chris, that is eight cases, just out of the top of my head that I investigated, where physically there is tantamount evidence that these people can be prosecuted but the NPA has withdrawn.
Now on the latest bit when Zizi Kodwa, which is a predominantly top 20 member of the ANC, goes to court, gets charged and then the NPA comes back last week and says but they don’t think that they will have enough evidence to prosecute that… Doesn’t that sound familiar?
A day after though, there is such a knee-jerk reaction that The Hawks apparently contacted the NPA and said can you please look at this again. Whereas The Hawks are actually part of the police but are in the investigative scenario.
Chris, this is blatant. Now maybe I’m in lala land. Miskien het ek bietjie wakker geword deurmekaar. This is not right because what you can see it’s a pattern of political coverage and political interference. I would love to be a prosecutor that sits down, and I’m not saying all, we have got very, very good prosecutors in this country. But I think when you look at this, I’m sorry, this is starting to become an algorithm that I am not comfortable with in this country, that political people are, in my opinion, being said by a crystal ball. I would love to have that crystal ball.
Neil De Beer (06:23.502)
Give me the lotto number 2665779 the bonus ball is 10 that you can say that there’s no hope in hell that you’re going to be absolutely positive that you can get a criminal account or a conviction against a certain person. This is not the law. So it seems again that George Orwell in his great scenario of Animal Farm becoming again infused in our politics where says everybody should be equal, some are just more equal than others, Chris.
Chris Steyn (06:57.551)
Neil, do you think it is incompetence on the part of the NPA or political interference?
Neil De Beer (07:05.58)
I think it’s a matter of three current strides. One, we can never in this country, specifically South Africa, walk away that political pressure, political influence, political genre en boeties vir baadjies has not got due process and absolute pressure within the prosecuting system.
Number two, we’ve got to understand, like we spoke the other day, that a lot of the times the people that sit in the prosecuting scenario, that they have to say for the greater good. Daai kom daai blêddie ding alweer, for the greater good, let us rather than not continue.
And thirdly, Chris, let’s be also in farness maybe to the prosecuting authority, we have a scenario where the Zondo Commission, and I think we did that about two months ago, where we sit with the prosecuting authority that needs certain documented evidence from the Department of Justice and from another state organisation to take it in and to prosecute. And you will remember the headline saying that they are being stifled and that a lot of those documents are suddenly now weg.
So I must also come up for the people of the NPA to say, irrespective of political pressure, which there always is, obviously the people of outer influence trying to take it. I mean, we had a judge recently impeached, Mr. Hlophe who try to in actual fact influence the outcome of a certain judgment on Zuma.
That’s the kind of stuff I think that goes on beyond the citizens’ reach. But it’s boiling over and it’s becoming public knowledge and that’s not right. And we need to have a look at that. So I think there is the fumbling of the ball, the pressure about your job and the non-compliance of certain departments to make sure that these people become scot-free.
We’re not going to end with that list. On this BizNews segment, we are here for the truth, our opinion stands and we will keep on highlighting it.
Chris Steyn (09:08.781)
Neil, I know you have followed the war of words between ActionSA leader Mr. Herman Mashaba and political economist Phumlani M Majozi. So I’m going to read to you one of his social media posts that is at the heart of these disagreements. And I’d like your comment on that because you have worked with black politicians in this country for over 30 years, first in the African National Congress and later in the Multi-Party Charter. So if anybody’s qualified to comment on this statement by Mr. Majozi, you are. He wrote, black people account for more than 80 % in South Africa, yet there is not a single black politician who stands for basic traditional values of hard work, personal responsibility, stronger business productivity, stronger families. law and order, not a single with an exclamation mark.
Chris Steyn (10:15.063)
What do you say?
Neil De Beer (10:18.286)
May I say shocking? You know there’s one thing that I has a pet hate and that is generalisation. I absolutely irk when someone uses generalisation and secondly there’s another pet hate I’ve got and that is the race card.
You know, Chris, it is abundantly clear that we’ve had a struggle in this country to get to an equilibrium where we did not have to answer on documents what is the pigmentation of the skin and the colour of your outside.
But when I look in here, I’m going to be a little bit off track. Chris, want ek vat dit persoonlik. I think I take this personally because, as you know, for more than a decade or two, I fought for the liberation of this country that people like Mr. Majozi of 35 years old and the rest of them can speak publicly in freedom because 30 years we could not ago.
Now I’m to sorry, Chris, but I am going to chastise both Herman Mashaba and Mr. Majozi. I am going to do that because I saw the massive amount of emails and the rebuke that came in from our listeners on the BizShow on a Sunday and they did not let both of them go. And the similarity between both of them…they both, if you look at their arduous comments of rights of reply and statements, there’s one fundamental thing, Chris, that I have picked up and I think you cannot disagree with me. Both, Herman and both Majozi have used the race card to absolutely nullify and justify their position. I just want us to freeze there. Herman has perpetuated to make a statement in his current interview with you that the white people that have brought us where we are here today were known to be colonisers, enslavers, murderers, and he even said rapists, if I am not unclear about the actual words that he used.
Neil De Beer (12:29.676)
He spoke of a history of the white draconian rule, but he spoke about white people as his fundamental statement.
And then on the right of reply, which you did so eloquently to get him to freedomly reply, Mr. Majozi went the absolute opposite to start chastising the people of black leadership of having actually, if you want to combine it, no chutzpah, no ideology of intellect, of actually formation leadership performance and of a quality of IQ.
Now I tell both of them, you are wrong. In both segments of history where I took part in the Struggle since 1988, you cannot say that there was not one singular person in this country that is of black leadership, I will call it that, that has not inspired or have actually worked accordance to the things of ethics, of honour, of integrity and value.
And I’ll start with Nelson Mandela, because Mr. Majozi says, none. Chris, I think his words were none.
Now this is absolutely ludicrous. This I have to then say, he’s a bright young man, I’ve never met him and I won’t. But he has put down a segment of having to put an opposite to an opposite and both of those gentlemen, I don’t know Mr. Majozi, but I very well know Mr. Mashaba. And to go the path of racial division and segregation more than 31 years ago is definitely not aspiring me to look at them…
Neil De Beer (14:08.11)
on anything they say because you cannot put a blanket scenario to say ona almal is. And we are gatvol of that. We are gatvol of the blanket synopsis of always listening and saying that we have to look at a racial segregation, a racial aptitude for the solutions of the future.
And you can see it sparked something in me when you name and say that not single one, but when you look at the people of the Walter Sisulu area, the Luthuli era, the Mandela era, the Kathrada era, the people like Honourable Thlabisa, the people like Gatsha Buthelezi, the people that come from an era, and in the modern times, some of the people that we are looking at now, and we say, but we have no black people that sit in a political norm at this current moment that has a value that esteems and aspires to credibility? Jy praat nonsens.
I am very careful to say that police are corrupt. Because you say all police are corrupt. This is not a good IQ level.
I can mention name after name of people I’ve met that are within the so-called black African conclave that inspired me that I really would sit there as a person that comes maybe from a white racial synopsis that entered a black racial synopsis and have to sit and look at the two values and actually say, wow, from both there are positive and from both there are negative. But to continually start a war of words about trying to say this is a good black guy and this is a bad white guy. Where have we gone Chris in intellectual IQ, EQ, AQ?
And I’ll tell you, in closing of those comments and statements that I look at the lists of aspiring young black, aspiring young white, coloured, Indian people that the wish one day will be in this country that we stop saying black men, white men, coloured men, Indian men and that we will start saying the word South African because the day that we can get and say that this is a good South African, this is a bad South African is the day that the legacy that white…
Neil De Beer (16:35.394)
Black, Indian and coloured in this country suffered and currently stand to say we don’t want this anymore. It’s politicians that take us back to racial segregation.
Sorry it’s long winded. Maar ’n mens raak ’n bietjie epies gatvol. Dit tril soos ’n jellie. I am absolutely saddened that when you have to do an interview that the racial segregation of the past, which we mustn’t forget, and my saying will always be, we must learn from the past, but we must stop bloody living in it. And we need to look at how do we go forward as a nation, not continually looking back and saying, well, that guy and that guy.
Chris, a tongue does not have a bone, but it has the power through its words to break bones. And I think both of those gentlemen need to understand that we seek leadership in unification of a great nation, instead of having a war of words of who’s good and who’s bad. Daarsy. Daar het jy nou my ding gekry.
Chris Steyn (17:46.137)
Thank you, Neil. Meanwhile, across the border, we have seen two very different reactions to the elections there. In Botswana, there has been a peaceful transition after the BDP was ousted following 58 years in power. Very dignified. And however, across the border, violence and unrest have broken out over allegations that Frelimo rigged the election to cling to power.
Neil De Beer (18:17.742)
Chris, actually history. I want to take the satellite view of the SADC region, in other words, the southern part of Africa. And I want to tell you, yesterday a person commented and said, it’s the end of the era in Botswana of a ruling party that governed that country for, I think it’s just over 58 years. And that, you know, that is quite a scenario, I said, but do you remember it happened in this country? And he frowned and said, excuse me, I said, you’re not mentioning South Africa. Chris, I think South Africans are in denial and specifically a few of them like the Fikile. The African National Congress, one of the oldest liberation organisations in the world who governed this country for 30 years, lost power. I think we must just quickly use that as a stark reminder; the governing party, the ANC, the liberator of this country through the form of its Struggle, this year was removed from power. They did not get 50 plus 1. So this is shocking. We should not walk away from our own shock to say just the fact that they’re in the GNU and that they’re still leading by whichever way they are. They lost power.
So in South Africa, the liberation movement who governed the country lost power in 2024. In Botswana, the country’s leadership of 58 years lost power. They now rumour that it’s going to happen in Namibia. That Swapo, who brought absolutely republication and freedom to Namibia, might also lose.
So if you look at the pattern, not speaking even about West Africa, it seems that there is a renewal, a scenario of out with the old and in with the new. And this I must tell you, I don’t mind.
But what we’ve got now is that Botswana has never been a country known for its violence or for its oppression or in actual fact for rebellion. There was a period where there was a little bit of to and throw, but there’s never been war.
Neil De Beer (20:43.33)
There’s never been outright civil war. There’s been in Mozambique. So if you look at Mozambique as a country, it has not been known for a peaceful country when it comes to politics or when it comes to the stabilisation of its citizens. And I think when this elections came through, that was a shock to the system. And obviously the people that have been at war, that have always been in war, because Mozambique has never not been out of war. I mean, we’ve got to admit that if it’s not uprisings in the north, then it is the rebellion on the sides of the two parties. It’s not been a peaceful country, yet a beautiful country. And today we sit and we see, and I’m not a person that loves fact by social media, but the pictures and the news that we get out from there is shocking and it is absolutely not what we want to see on a neighbour side because we say when Mozambique or Zimbabwe, when they sneeze we get the cold. So I hope that there will be an intervention. I hope that there will be the calmness of understanding because I’ve been there, I’ve been privileged to travel Mozambique and what a beautiful country and what a beautiful people. So I think they deserve better and our prayers go out that they quickly get to their senses and stabilise.
Chris Steyn (22:08.259)
Neil, I want to end today’s show with something posted by Democratic Alliance Federal Chairperson Helen Zille last night. To anybody I offended this year, work on yourself so that I don’t got to do it again in 2025. Shall we say Amen to that, Neil?
Neil De Beer (22:31.884)
You know, Chris, there’s been a lot of scenarios where people say I’m pro Helen or I’m against Helen or I have a negative opinion. No. Helen Zille is Helen Zille. And you will never change Helen and the fact that she’s got access to two thumbs and social media will always be that thing that when you were a young laaitie, you were looking through the window, you could see the culmination of a lot of presents under the tree, and you were not thinking, are you going to open it or you are going to peek? You were thinking, where do you get masking tape that when you do peek, you can close it that no one sees again. When Helen Zille sneak peeks and opens boxes, there’s no masking tape that will put it back together. And at the same time, when she tweets that, I must tell you I was sitting in my couch, I spilled my coffee and I went Ai Jirrie tog.
And at the same time the video pops up. I think it’s a leaked video. Where she actually makes a statement about the GNU discussion. And, Chris, I was going to send it to you, but it was 10 past 12 last night. I think if I sent it to you, you’d think there was something that’s majorly going on. So I kept it. Helen Zille says in this video clip that was leaked, it must be leaked, that one of the biggest fights and here comes the interesting part that they had in the GNU discussion was that one of the things that they were not negotiable about, hear this Chris, the ANC was not negotiable about, was to keep DIRCO. And she says in this video she didn’t get that that no matter what ministry, the only one they wanted and would fight for was International Relations. And then she makes the most startling admittance and accusation in that video that if I saw it as the ANC or I saw it as a person in opposition, I would absolutely be speechless.
Neil De Beer (24:56.076)
We are going to unpack it this week. We are going to delve a little bit on the accusations that she made and next Sunday we will reveal the inner of the inner of what she says because if she’s saying what she says and she’s right but she makes a caveat in the video that she doesn’t have the facts and that she might be wrong. I think she’s touched something on there that might be not just a little bit of a vein but an artery.
I’m going to leave it there and we will then unpack the Helen Zille video about the ANC’s manipulation, apparently to keep international relationships and international ministries going because that’s where they get most of their stuff. So watch out for next Sunday. We’re going to dig a little bit.
Chris Steyn (25:47.513)
Thank you. That was Neil de Beer, the President of the United Independent Movement on the Sunday Show with BizNews, I’m Chris Steyn. Thank you, Neil.
Neil De Beer (25:57.954)
Thanks, Chris.
Read also:
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- Mashaba goes after Majozi and Gwamanda
- De Beer: How politicians are being protected by the “lie of the greater good”
